Archive for October, 2016|Monthly archive page

Founders of itcher found this blog sent me brief information about their mobile app. Since I like to use several recommendation services to find out new stuff, I said why not. Have a look..

How the idea was born

We live in a digital age – with millions of titles across streaming platforms, there is an undeniable need for something that helps users navigate through the mass of entertainment. itcher was created to solve this problem.

What is itcher?

itcher is an app that recommends movies, books, music and games available on both Android and iOS. itcher tailors recommendations to each user’s individual taste, and makes discovery exciting again!

How it Works

After downloading the app users will get personalized recommendations by first rating 5 titles in any category they choose. As users rate, the recommendations will light up the lightbulb tab and users can view them immediately. The recommendations also get better over time. It’s that easy.

We will be launching our next e-seminar on Tuesday 25 October 2016 at 00:00 GMT. If you are new to the list, our e-seminars run for a period of 2 weeks and they are vibrant spaces for discussion and confrontation on a specific paper.

E-seminars are free and open to anyone with a genuine interest in the anthropology of media. To participate please subscribe to our mailing list via this page.

Going to Minneapolis for the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association? Readers of the blog who have never been to Minnesota may be trying to mix business with pleasure by visiting some of the iconic places in the Twin Cities area. I have never traveled to Minnesota but I associate it with three distinct cultural pilgrimages: paying homage to shopping in the same room as a roller coaster, paying homage to Prince, and paying homage to fictional hero, Marge Gunderson, of the 1996 Coen Brothers film, Fargo. With Marge Gunderson, the Coen Brothers gave us one of the most memorable heroes in modern cinema, beloved for her charm, wit, kindness, and bravery. Less notable but still noticeable was Marge Gunderson’s healthy appetite.

The people who fill our theory readers are real people who lived vibrant, quirky lives. It is easy to reduce them to a set of ideas or to a stereotyped, essentialized colonizer. But in fact their ideas — and their colonialism! — were flesh and blood and richly particular.

The Republican nominee for president, Donald Trump, is a self-proclaimed billionaire and (apparently) a successful businessman. Yet he claims to be a champion of the disenfranchised working class. How does he do that? One way is by donning a baseball cap with the phrase “Make America Great Again” on the front.

Ignoring the slogan, though, I’d like to draw attention to the way he wears his hat. The bill is always in the front, pulled down to his eyebrows, and the base of the hat parallels the ground, with the back of the hat higher than the midpoint of the back of his head.

ISTANBUL Turkish police on Monday detained the editor-in-chief of the opposition secularist Cumhuriyet newspaper and said homes of the paper’s executives and writers were being searched, broadcaster CNN Turk and other media reported. Prosecutors

Police has raided the houses of Cumhuriyet Daily Ediyor-in-Chief Murat Sabuncu, President of the Execution Board Akın Atalay and Cumuhuriyet Foundation Executive Board member and columnist Güray Öz. Sabuncu and Öz have been taken into custody.

Turkish police have detained the editor-in-chief of daily Cumhuriyet and at least four other journalists, the newspaper reported early on Oct. 31, while CNN Türk reported that at least 13 warrants have been issued for the newspaper’s journalists and executives.

ISTANBUL Turkish authorities have dismissed more than 10,000 civil servants over their suspected links with U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, blamed by Ankara for orchestrating the failed coup in July. Thousands of academics, teachers and health

Most of those who know Turkey’s human rights community probably also know Ömer Faruk Gergerlioğlu. He is a medical doctor from the city of Kocaeli, and has been a devoted human rights activist for decades.

As the subscription-based Harvard Business Review drops from 10 print issues a year to six in 2017, it’s looking for those new formats through six new online series, each of which will be a multi-day, multimedia package organized around a single concept. The metaphor of the print magazine is useful for understanding the editorial structure of these series, which HBR is calling “The Big Idea.”

“I don’t think I would pay for it just because there’s so much availability of news on the internet for free that I feel like, if I have to pay for something somewhere, I’ll just look for it free somewhere else,” said one college student interviewed for an American Press Institute study released last year about American millennials’ attitudes towards paying for news.

Snapchat is planning to switch up the payment terms of its Discover section, Recode reports — but that might not be a bad thing if it provides publishers with a little more certainty about their revenue from the platform.

Hope isn’t lost for media organizations trying to get readers to stop blocking their ads. Maybe all they have to do is ask.

In July, The Financial Times ran a 30-day experiment to see what it would take to get people to whitelist the site in their adblocking software. Fifteen thousand of its registered users were split into three groups, each of which had access restricted in different ways. One group, for example, was presented with FT stories that had some of their words removed, a metaphor for the share of revenue that comes from advertising. Other readers weren’t able to access the site at all unless they opted in to ads. Readers were also given a message: “We understand your decision to use an ad blocker. However, FT journalism takes time and funding…”

This post was submitted by Robert Skoro.A musician-turned-anthropologist, Robert works in private industry as a strategist and researcher.

Bob Dylan has been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, a remarkable gesture to all, whether obvious or controversial. His songs provoked and catalyzed cultural change during a pivotal era in American history, and an American hasn’t won the Nobel Prize in Literature since Toni Morrison in 1993. Yet as readers of this blog have likely noticed, the award was conspicuously met with the question of whether or not Dylan’s most impactful work is in fact a form of literature in the tradition the award maintains.

In the early hours of August 24, 2016, a 6.2 magnitude earthquake rocked Central Italy. Its epicenter lay below small medieval towns on the mountainous border of four regions—Umbria, Latium, Abruzzi, and The Marches. The earthquake was so intense that it was felt from Bologna to Naples, and soon the world would awake to the previously unknown town of Amatrice flattened into a pile of dust and rubble. Bearing the brunt of the earthquake, Amatrice lost 236 lives that day; another 51 deaths were reported in Arquata del Tronto and 11 in Accumoli, as well.

Katarin Ladu is tall and thin, with short, curled hair and a face wrinkled by sunshine, age, and worry. She wears a beaded necklace, a mismatched pair of flip-flops, and a long, loose dress with intricate patterns on it. I follow her a quarter-mile along a red-dirt path that leads from the United Nations tent where she lives to the soil where she is making a garden. “This is my plot,” she says, pointing to a small patch of straw-covered earth where tiny green pea leaves are beginning to emerge. “They are not yet ready for eating,” Ladu says. But when they are, she explains, she will pluck the leaves, boil them with salt, chop them, and—this is her dream—mix them with a paste of groundnuts (peanuts) and sesame seeds.

Up next for the Anthropologies #22 Food issue we have this essay from Chhaya Kolavalli. –R.A.

“In faith work, you want your faith to fuel you, personally, and it will shine out in what you do—you won’t have to try to convert anyone. We don’t want to tell people what to believe. But we do want to beg the question, ‘Oh my gosh, why are things going so well for them?—Well, let me tell you! It’s because of the light of the lord. And you know I’ll answer questions if people ask, but I won’t push it. And lots of times people start asking these questions in our garden”

Margaret Mead was among the 20th century’s most famous anthropologists. She not only helped shape the discipline but also made significant contributions to public dialogues about culture, power, and sexuality. Fæ/Wikimedia Commons

Universities need anthropology now, more than ever.Huffington PostAnthropology as a field may be way off many people’s radar, but now more than ever we need to encourage students to learn the skill sets that anthropology provides. Certainly, in the 1960santhropology gained a reputation of hipster academics headed to …

In her book, Rachel Black explores social interplay on the stage of Porta Palazzo in Turin, one of Italy’s preeminent open air markets. Approachable for all audiences, this is a descriptive ethnographic account of political, social and gendered relationships: the market is a hotbed of cultural diversity. As Black convincingly argues, it’s the most visible entry point for social admission. Through several case studies, she highlights the market as an edge habitat between pre-established (Italian) and pre-eminent (immigrant) cultures.

Penguins became the symbol of the government’s grip on the media in Turkey in 2013, when during the Gezi protests many news channels aired documentaries, one of them on CNN Türk about penguins. Since then the main media have become even more

A second full internet shutdown has cut off 6 million citizens in Turkey’s Southeast regions according to network reachability analysis, following yesterday’s incident that shut off much of the country. The blocks, coming amidst protests against…

Turkey ‘s government on Thursday cut mobile and landline internet access in 11 cities in the southeast area of the country for the second day in a row. The decision came after locals took the streets in protest over Diyarbakır’s co-mayors

Author: Amberin Zaman October 27, 2016 Turkey’s Kurds protested the detentions of the co-mayors of Diyarbakir, the country’s largest Kurdish-majority city, for a second day, even as a government-imposed internet outage across the mainly Kurdish

“It’s not only about us versus the system. The system is really us.” As Iceland’s radical Pirate party approaches the gates of power, we speak to its figurehead Birgitta Jónsdóttir.

Birgitta Jónsdóttir. Frank Augstein/AP/Press Association Images. All rights reserved.Ashish Ghadiali: What is happening in Iceland right now? It’s really weird, right? You’ve got a prosperous nation, the economy has recovered out of a terrible collapse, and suddenly, led by the Pirate Party, you’ve got this most radical reformist government within an inch of power…

Shortly after the cancellation of the EU summit with Canada, Belgium on Thursday reached a consensus on the free trade agreement. This has stopped Ceta falling through for now. Some commentators see no cause to celebrate an agreement that they believe undermines national sovereignty. Others praise Canada’s conduct during the altercation as exemplary.

Nato plans to boost its military presence in eastern Europe as of 2017. Alliance defence ministers discussed the details of the plan at a meeting in Brussels this week. A total of 4,000 troops are to be stationed in the Baltic states and Poland. For some commentators this is a clever preemptive move in the context of Russian aggression. Others fear an escalation in the conflict with Moscow.

With six months to go before France’s presidential election in April and May 2017, the incumbent head of state François Hollande is lagging far behind in the polls. Only four percent of the French are satisfied with his performance. Commentators speculate that this could push many Socialists to make an unusual decision.

Today Thursday was supposed to see the signing of the Ceta trade agreement between Canada and the EU. But since Belgium failed to reach a consensus with it regions, the Canadian governmental delegation has cancelled its trip to Brussels. Some commentators are pleased that Wallonia kept up its resistance, saying this may force renegotiations. Others voice disappointment at the EU’s inability to take action.

The Peasants and Greens Union, until recently just a small opposition party, has won the parliamentary election in Lithuania. Voters relegated the ruling Social democrats to third place, while the conservatives came second. Lithuania’s press analyses the reasons for this unexpected outcome.

The Conservative justice minister filibustered a bill to pardon the thousands of men convicted under legislation that criminalised homosexuality. This act lays bear the discrimination still faced by LGBT people in this country.

A statue of Alan Turing, for whom the bill was named. Photo: Jon Callas. Wikimedia Commons. Creative Commons Licensed.The failure of the Turing Bill is a stark reminder of the homophobia embedded in British society. A staunchly undemocratic filibuster, led by none other than justice minister Sam Gyimah, ensured that no vote could be taken on the Bill. The Turing Bill, named after WW2 code breaker Alan Turing, was intended to pardon the gay men prosecuted before homosexuality was decriminalised in 1967.

The Belgian government is still trying to convince Wallonia and Brussels to agree to Ceta. In view of Belgium’s rejection of the deal it is not clear whether the trade agreement between the EU and Canada can be signed on Thursday. The Ceta situation has triggered a debate over whether the EU states are still capable of reaching decisions together.

After two elections and months of deadlock Spain is finally getting a new government. The socialist PSOE party has decided to back a minority government led by Mariano Rajoy and his conservative People’s Party – a course they initially rejected after the election in June. Journalists predict that the Socialists will have a hard time supporting the conservatives.

The Italian government is not losing support because it saves refugees. It is losing support because it is not perceived to be able to convince Europe to do more, says Monica Frassoni, the European Greens co-chair.

Is Brexit bad for UK universities? This appears to be the question at the centre of an article from the Times Higher Education titled “UK researchers face uncertainty over EU grant applications” (David Matthews, June 29, 2016), which was approvingly reprinted in the Bulletin of the Canadian Association of University Teachers (Vol. 63, No. 7, September, 2016, p. 7). It’s peculiar that CAUT would republish this piece, which is not based on facts as much as fear, since CAUT has taken a fairly consistent, hard line in its criticisms of the impact of neoliberalism on higher education. Is it that CAUT’s writers only have a problem with neoliberalism when it adversely affects established traditions in post-secondary education in Canada, but otherwise have no problem with neoliberalism as such? That might explain the odd dualism.

Around 2,000 people demonstrated for the reunification of Romania and its neighbour the Republic of Moldova in Bucharest this weekend. A protest march in support of reunification has taken place every October since 2012. Commentators present various arguments for why the move is not possible right now.

In the Western Balkans, even the most fundamental and comparatively minute probing into the workings of government can provoke an aggressive response from the very top, as Milka Tadić-Mijović found out.

“No, no, I only won the libel case in Serbia. It’ll be a long time before I win in Montenegro,” Milka Tadić-Mijović tells me with a subtle scoff at the speed at which legal processes unfold in the Balkans.

After two elections and months of deadlock Spain is finally getting a new government. The socialist PSOE party has decided to support a minority government led by Mariano Rajoy and his conservative People’s Party. The Socialists had roundly rejected this course after the last election in June. Many journalists see the party’s policy shift as a sensible decision but some argue that with this move the PSOE has discredited itself as a leftist party.

Asylum-seekers attacked the premises of the European Asylum Support Office (EASO) on the island of Lesbos on Monday (24 October), protesting against delays in dealing with asylum claims, Greek and EU authorities said.